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Monday, October 6, 2014

We had a group photo taken at my local pharmacy. The store employees
and all customers in attendance were invited to partake in the festivities.

We were celebrating a milestone in the life of my personal
physician, Dr. Larry, who finally signed scrip that any pharmacist could
decipher.

Larry is a wonderful physician, young, personable, competent
but his abysmal penmanship skills are legendary throughout drug emporiums in
the 5 county area. If the stereotype of poor writing skills among physicians is
factual, then I am proud to say that Dr. Larry must have graduated at the very
top of his class.

Larry once confused my pharmacy so badly that I arrived home from a purchase, opened the bag and found
I was given a “Hello Kitty” Pez dispenser.

We could use his skills during wartime for secret coding as
it would trump even the Navajo Code Talkers of World War 2.

I had an appointment this past week and was surprised to
find the Doc had hired on a nurse who was completing her training as a
Physician’s Assistant and was following along on each of his appointments.

When the time came for the scrip, the PA dutifully filled
out the form and handed it to me, gasping as I was finally able to gaze upon a piece
of paper that one would believe was created by a classically trained calligrapher.

It took me 20 minutes to finally convince Carl, the
Pharmacist, that I had not illegally obtained Dr. Larry’s pre-signed prescription
pad and was going rogue in pill acquisitions.

They all took out their cell phones and snapped photos with the
enthusiasm of a tourist spotting a monster on Lock Ness.

I couldn't admit the Assistant actually wrote out Dr. L's instructions.

Bad physician jokes aside, I recently read that schools are
choosing to discontinue cursive handwriting; it’s being banished from the
public education sector and shown the exit sign quicker than God was booted out.

I cannot criticize as I fail to understand my own scribblings,
and I studied the Palmer method at St. Attica’s under the tutelage of Sister Ernest
Borgnine, the one and the same whose samurai yardstick- wielding skills cured
my own father of his natural southpawedness (the Devil’s hand) turning him into
an ambidextrous and acceptable unto the eyes of the Lord.

Available time and limited resources are the reasons given
that now allow keyboards and texting to become the mainstay substitute
replacement. The former three “R’s” now become two “R’s” and a tweet.

I often wonder if in the future any remnants of classical education will
be necessary when America moves into a new era with a greater need for competent drone pilots,
security camera operators and boarder fence guards.

We need doers, not thinkers!

Grandgirl number 1 is a second grader who has been exposed to
the laptop but studies cursive handwriting along with Latin, Egyptian hieroglyphics and the use
of an abacus.

I guess her future is carved in rock, relegated to pyramid
and obelisk building.

Maybe she can assist in construction of the boarder-fence.

We will need those walls to “keep all those undesirables out”.

And when completed the fences can also keep us in.

At one time didn’t some of our ancestors have to climb a few
walls to get here?